Echoes Of Stalin. (Be careful when you have tea.) Games Part III. Shoes.

(More of the Games theme: see below, parts II and I.)


ECHOES OF STALIN IN TEA PARTY ARRESTS

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Telegraph: 07/02/2007

Russian authorities were accused of turning the clock back to
Stalinist times yesterday after a group of human rights activists was
found guilty of having an "unsanctioned" afternoon tea party with two
Westerners. --

Nine members of Froda, a group that campaigns for ethnic minority
rights, were found guilty of holding an illegal meeting and fined
after they had tea with two German students visiting a friend in the
southern city of Novorossiysk.
The students, involved in similar campaign work in Germany, had
requested a meeting to find out more about a Froda project encouraging
children of different racial backgrounds to play football together.

But as the meeting began, armed officers from the Federal Security
Service, the intelligence agency that succeeded the KGB, burst into
the headmaster's study and detained the group.
"We were told that citizens were forbidden to gather and ordered to
make a written explanation," said Tamara Karastelyova, Froda's
director.
"We were told that, under the new law, any meeting of two or more
people with the purpose of discussing publicly important issues had to
be sanctioned by the local administration three days in advance," Mrs
Karastelyova said.

The verdict, with its echoes of the Stalinist era when Russians were
forbidden from meeting foreigners, has provoked outrage among
non-governmental organisations.
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This week's Challenge at Photo Thursday is Shoes.

This is also what I wish, for O.C. and her work.